Our Daily Sykes #102 – "Autumn Pool Okanogan"

“By his own caption "Autumn Pool Okanogan" Horace Sykes has taken us again to north central Washington but also wondering again where exactly was he standing. The pool is but one of - I count - eight layers moving from the vigorous ground cover in the forground to the last and highest rolling hill. There are also in this drawing subject an orchard, a small farm shed, some fencing and the screen of willows (Journeyman Matt corrects me. Those are Lombardy Poplars.) on the left horizon protecting , perhaps, a farm. (Click = Enlarge)

2 thoughts on “Our Daily Sykes #102 – "Autumn Pool Okanogan"”

Willows indeed? To me this looks like another shot of the Lombardy poplars of Sykes #16 (http://pauldorpat.com/?p=6755). Could today’s photo not have been taken from off to the left of — and down in the valley from — that earlier viewpoint?

Having the power of the editor, Matt, I’ll change it, while not improving on my – for me – age old confusion of poplars and willows. But then poplars are more dappled and willows more stringy. Poplars go gold – do willows, and are they both used for wind breaks? Your wondering if these poplars are the same as that one show twice from within yards of each of Horace’s camerawork made another good point. I don’t know if we can tell – although I will go and look – but some day perhaps someone will be able to take nearly all of Horace Sykes unidentified slides and find or figure out the route of that Journeyman Matt, the Journeyman Horace. It would require a detailed understanding of the American West and there would be some subjects that would forever remains secrets of his whereabouts, but I’d bet that most of them could be put in an order that followed his moves. I’ll now go look at those other poplar(s) and see if there might be a “fingerprint” in the limbs. But I’m not hopeful. These are more like a chorus of poplars.